Panel Blueprint Seeks To Relate School to Work

By Lonnie Harp

WASHINGTON--Wholesale changes in teacher education, in-service training, and student assessments are key ingredients in a long-overdue transformation of the nation's schools, a Labor Department commission on workers' skill deficiencies urged last week.

Government and education officials at all levels should make teaching more engaging and active and reinforce that focus with a new generation of tests, according to the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, which issued its final report after two years of study.

"The education reforms of the 1980's demonstrated that it is futile to try to wring high performance from schools by doing more of the same,'' argues the report, "Learning a Living: A...